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thanks for reply - will start shortly to collect all my old RVL papers and documents - then writing the story (as I knew it) - have quite a bit I
would like to have scanned - just hoping my printer starts working again.

It will be coming - just be patient!

With regards to the Royal Viking Nova - am not convinced that this being a
possible newbuilding at all - none of the drawings shows that little square which provides information on date and year the drawing being made and not at least by whom as well as the scale of the drawings.
The drawings presented so far lacks all the RVL vessel basic's and it's possible that these drawings being made by a shipyard hoping to sell a newbuilding to Kloster (Vard/NCL) or I knew that Kloster played around with quite a few different drawings of which most of them came to nothing.

Can anyone come up with a drawing that show the information square - normally placed in the lower right hand bottom of the drawings??
If and when found it will tell us quite a lot!

There is a Kloster logo on it... but not an official GA plan of any kind (containing the square indicating drawn by, date and such), though the architects seems to be Yran and Storbraaten.

Deep in my memory I seem to recall some kind of discussion long before also, that either the Winward/ Dreamward was opted out as a Royal Viking vessel before they were built. They were, as we know, instead completed as NCL vessels... I could be completely wrong as well on that point.

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You are right - it does say Peter Yran & co at the bottom of the drawing which has the RVL Crow on the funnel - but it also say Project Universal which might mean that it could be for either division - NCL and/or RVL.
It looks like it's some early working drawings and not incoperated in a GA
plan.

the other drawings would indicate more a NCL vessel than a possible RVL
newbuilding. This appears to be somebody thinking out load than a real
project - if so, at least at a very early stage.

Looking at the drawings alone it looks nowhere near a real possible project!

Regrettably.

greetings
Steinar A:

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Deep in my memory I seem to recall some kind of discussion long before also, that either the Winward/ Dreamward was opted out as a Royal Viking vessel before they were built. They were, as we know, instead completed as NCL vessels... I could be completely wrong as well on that point.

I agree... that is supporting a very vague memory of the additional RVL vessel being completed as Windward/ Dreamward instead. This is very long back, and nothing was written down, so memory may play me a joke.

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I wonder if has anything to do with excelsior also being the shredded wood that is used as packing filler?? That's the more common usage, at least in my mind...My first thought was "why would they name a ship for a pile of shredded wood???"

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I have despite extensive inquiries not been able to find out any more about the Nova - many ex RVL staff remember the project but as they were not actively involved in it their memories are vague.

Given that it was named Project Universal I am also inclined to the view that the drawings that I have shared with you all on our old forum are nothing more than the architects working through a number of options for their client - in this case NCL Group.

However, it is clear that their was a lot of thought given to building an additional RVL ship after the Sun and before the Queen arrived, as the plans as shown are very much a luxury ship and not the mass market type that would be deployed under the NCL brand.

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I have despite extensive inquiries not been able to find out any more about the Nova - many ex RVL staff remember the project but as they were not actively involved in it their memories are vague.

Given that it was named Project Universal I am also inclined to the view that the drawings that I have shared with you all on our old forum are nothing more than the architects working through a number of options for their client - in this case NCL Group.

However, it is clear that their was a lot of thought given to building an additional RVL ship after the Sun and before the Queen arrived, as the plans as shown are very much a luxury ship and not the mass market type that would be deployed under the NCL brand.

RV NOVA was indeed based off of the general hull and machinery footprint of the Dream/Wind-ward pair.

She would of course been totally different from her NCL siblings in her general arrangement but they would have been very similar in size.

If my memory serves me correctly, she would have been in the 42,000 ton range and like her NCL siblings, she would have had tremendous galley space built in for the restaurants.

And if you look closely, you can see that some of her restaurant arrangements were similar to the NCL twins.

Sadly, around the same time that Kloster and Y&S were working on the project, they did not have the money to build the ship and the principals were looking to sell or re-capitalize the company.

Once the company was paired down to Sun and Queen, it was all over except for the proverbial screaming.

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First of all, I would personally like to wish you a personal and warn welcome on board our friendly family vessel, CaptainsVoyage.

Second of all, I would also like to say thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom on the Nova project. You have indeed confirmed alot of what we have assumed before in this thread, and it feels wonderful to have someone actually confirm our suspicions.

It is indeed sad RVL did not have sufficient finds to realize this vessel: I wonder if they had built the Nova-project, would they maybe have managed to stay afloat with this division? Wouldn't it be nice to think that Royal Viking Line still would have been the world's finest cruise line?

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First of all, I would personally like to wish you a personal and warn welcome on board our friendly family vessel, CaptainsVoyage.

Second of all, I would also like to say thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom on the Nova project. You have indeed confirmed alot of what we have assumed before in this thread, and it feels wonderful to have someone actually confirm our suspicions.

It is indeed sad RVL did not have sufficient finds to realize this vessel: I wonder if they had built the Nova-project, would they maybe have managed to stay afloat with this division? Wouldn't it be nice to think that Royal Viking Line still would have been the world's finest cruise line?

Jan-Olav,

many thanks for the warm welcome! I have no doubt that had Kloster managed to build the RV Nova, they would have remained a viable entity.

The problem was that once RV Sun was introduced, the triplets became superflous and could not remain in the fleet. RV Queen was nothing more than a band-aid and made for a very odd and incongrous running mate to the Sun.

Had Kloster managed to sell RVL and RCL to AEA Investments, both would probably still be around. Sadly, AEA was at odds with them over the purchase price, especially given they would have had to have immediately spent close to $750 million to rebuild both fleets.

And by that time, Crystal, Silversea and Seabourn had already put the nail in RVL's proverbial coffin as the die-hard loyalists were either dying, or defecting to those other brands.

At the end of the day, Kloster had to sacrifice RVL and RCL to save NCL due to the debt owed on Norway, Seaward and the Dream/Wind twins.

I will ask my friends at Y&S if they have anything laying around in the archives on NOVA.

Best,

Tim

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Thank you so much for answering so many of my questions and for re-lighting some of my memory from the early 90's.

As you say, Royal Viking Line did get some serious competition in the early 90's. I do remember the hype around Crystal Harmony when she was introduced in 1990: she was new, she was perfectly shaped and had the modern right lay-out.

Having worked for both luxury cruise lines for many years myself, something which is also very special I would guess (never thought about it before), I wonder how an experience it wold have been sitting on the wall of the boardroom of NYK in the late 80's. The time when they were planning the CH, her launch, her amenities and while they were trying to gather her first superior crew. Undoubtedly, there were a lot of secrecy in the initial stages, and a lot of crew were recruited by NYK/Crystal at the time.

It's a reasons why NYK wanted Norwegian officers, and especially those with a background from RVL.

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Very interesting update on this thread. Let us hope you are able to get some more information from Y&S - the photos I posted from the spec drawings never showed a ship profile - now that would be interesting to see.

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